34-Year-Old Sells Debut Novel for About $2M

posted by Kate Seamons, Newser Staff
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3 years ago

(NEWSER) – There's a good chance you've never heard the name Garth Risk Hallberg; that ends now. The 34-year-old's debut novel, City on Fire, found itself the subject of a two-day bidding war that ended with quite the payday for its young author: nearly $2 million, two sources tell the New York Times. Knopf landed the novel, which clocks in at 900 pages and, in the Times' telling, heralds the resurgence of the long novel. Hallberg himself was said to be nervous about the length of the book, which he wrote over a period of six years—needlessly, it turns out.